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The most active thread yesterday was again the Fairfax County Public Schools boundaries thread that I've already discussed. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Young Men are Becoming More Sexist - It's About Status", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster quotes from transcripts of a podcast discussion about attitudes toward women held by young men around the world. According to the discussion, young men are becoming more sexist than older men. This is somewhat of a contradiction because by most measures, young men are more supportive of women's equality, being more likely to support women pursuing any job or holding elected office. Young men are more likely to recognize that women have equal capabilities. But, according to the discussion, there is increased resentment towards women among younger men than among older men. This is attributed to young men's desire for status represented by such things as college education, purchasing a home, and having a pretty wife or girlfriend. Women have been out-performing men educationally for sometime now and the difficult housing market is obviously effecting young people, both male and female. But, it is the last factor, finding a girlfriend, with which young men struggle the most because greater financial and social independence among women has resulted in less pressure among them to find a mate. In short, women are now able to be more picky and young men resent them for it. Moreover, when those resentful young men turn to the Internet, they find welcoming communities eager to encourage and feed their resentment. Topics of this sort have been fairly common in the relationship forum and I have written about several such threads that were among the most active. While I would never argue that the discussions in the relationship forum reach Socratic Club levels, they are head and shoulders above the level of discourse displayed here. Not for the first time, I feel like the political forum is nearly useless. It is filled with automatons able to do little more than repeat the handful of talking points with which they have apparently been programmed. For instance, it is disappointing but not surprising to see that among the first responses were attempts to turn the discussion into one about trans people. It takes a bit to unpack how the thread got there, but what you need to understand is that to some DCUM posters, it is not traditional sexist ideas such as women being inferior to men, their place being in the home, and their duty being to bear children, that threatens women's rights. Rather, it is offering support to trans people that is the real threat, and apparently in these posters' view, a much bigger threat in fact. Similarly, plenty of posters were eager to assure readers that liberal men are actually the biggest misogynists, their primary infraction being that they are not honest about their misogyny as apparently are conservative men. It is always possible to take any issue and wedge it though the prism of your particular political views — and plenty of posters in this thread do exactly that — but doing so does not result in a very enlightening discussion. As such, this discussion is not particularly enlightening.